Page 62 of Cross Down
“Got it.”
Once more the voice comes through the speakers, strong and firm and definitely a woman’s.
“That voice sounds familiar,” Maynard says.
“Yeah, to me too.”
“Can you send a copy of the cleaned-up sound file to my thumb drive?”
Willard says, “Certainly.”
There’s a quick motion of his fingers, then theclick-clickof a mouse, and Willard pulls out the thumb drive and hands it over to Maynard. This time, Maynard makes sure that his fingers don’t touch Willard’s. He slips the thumb drive into his shirt pocket.
Damn, the voice does sound familiar, and he’s still surprised that the Boss is a woman. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s good to know. Over the years, whenever he came across fellow travelers who claimed that women weren’t tough enough to make the hard decisions, he’d shut them up by saying three names: Meir, Gandhi, Thatcher.
Willard swivels in his seat. “We need to talk.”
Maynard is surprised. “We do? About what?”
His chubby face flushes. “This…situation we have. It’s over. I don’t want you bothering me anymore.”
Maynard says, “What, you found God all of a sudden? You’ve stopped visiting the dark web and sharing all those nasty files?”
The man’s face reddens even more. “What I do or don’t do is none of your business. But it’s over. Today’s the last time you contact me to do your dirty work.”
Maynard thinks that this pervert complaining about Maynard’s dirty work is the height of irony, but he doesn’t have time to discuss it; he needs to get going and leave this foul room. “There’s always anor elsetacked on the end of such a statement,” Maynard says. “Let’s hear it.”
Willard gently caresses his keyboard. “Over the years, I’ve kept track of all your illegal information requests, with dates and details. We come to an agreement right here and now that you’ll never, ever bother me again, or those files get released. TheNew York Times,CNN, ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, maybe even your mother, living comfortably at the Villages in Florida—in one week, I’ll make the info dump.”
Maynard knows he’s never discussed personal information with this creature, but he’s managed to find out where Mom lives. “In one week, you say?”
Willard nods. “Seven days.”
Maynard says, “That sounds like a fair arrangement. I mean, I know I’ve pressed you over the years, sometimes under difficult circumstances, to go dumpster-diving on the internet for me. Tell you what—I agree.”
Willard says, “For real?”
“Sure,” Maynard says. “Let’s shake on it.”
Willard gets up from his chair and Maynard slips his hand into his right jacket pocket, removes a Filipino butterfly knife, gives it a quick rotation, and, when the blade is secured, stabs Willard twice in the chest. Willard gasps and falls back in his chair.
Maynard wipes the blade clean on Willard’s shirt, and as Willard gasps, he says, “You might’ve tried to do the info dump tomorrow, and I couldn’t let that happen. But in a week?” He flips the knife back to its carrying position, puts it in his jacket pocket.
“In a week, no one will care,” he says. He leaves as Willard bleeds out in the chair.
Chapter
72
I climb intothe driver’s seat of the Tahoe and push the ignition switch, and about two seconds later Deacon gets into the passenger’s seat.
She says, “I don’t remember saying you could drive.”
“Blame the patriarchy,” I say, buckling up. I put the Tahoe in reverse. “You drove us here, and it seems fair I drive us out. Fasten your seat belt, Elizabeth, we’re going to hit some bumps.”
I shift the Tahoe into drive, circle the building, and spot the swing set. I keep driving until the visual display on the Tahoe’s dashboard readsSOUTH/180 DEGREES. Then I drive right into the woods.
When we’re in the saplings and brush, I again admire Bastinelli’s foresight to pack gravel and dirt into an invisible road. Invisible, but not smooth. There are bumps and sways, and Deacon says, “You know what you’re doing?”
